but what she was doing seemed to be holding the pieces of fabric together securely.
Also filed under remarkably unattractive was the fact that the “pants” would be much too big for Thomas—but better that than too small. They would keep him warm. Warmer. But only if she could figure out some way to keep them on. A pair of suspenders. Some kind of belt or... ooh, maybe a drawstring.
Yeah, a drawstring at the alleged waistline would work. She could use the cord from one of the bedside table lamps in the bedroom, if she couldn’t find anything else. And rather than folding over the top and painstakingly sewing a casing—and possibly running out of thread in the process—she could simply cut a series of holes in the approximate waist and run the cord both inside and out of the “pants.” Although best to wait to do that until after Thomas came back, and tried them on. Probably after he showered.
And probably also after he sat her down and told her—gently, because he was Thomas and he absolutely loved her—that he didn’t love her that way, and that he was glad they’d talked, but now it was time to let it go and put the White Russian incident fully behind them.
Still friends? he’d ask.
And she’d nod, and say Of course, because the alternative was too awful to consider. So yes, they’d remain friends. Except they wouldn’t. They would merely be friendly. But that would be better than the past five years.
Still, it was going to suck, having Thomas try on the “pants,” fresh from the shower. His chest and stomach bare as she tried to ignore his gorgeous rich brown skin and hard muscles, as she crouched in front of him, checking to see where the “pants” met his hips, so she could figure out where above them to cut the holes for the drawstring, while still giving him enough inseam space in the crotch to move and not get his male package squeezed.
Oh, good. Perfect thing to be thinking about.
In truth, she could simply let him do it. Toss him the “pants,” the lamp cord, and a pair of scissors—okay, she wouldn’t throw scissors at him, not even in theory—and let him figure it out. He was certainly smart enough—the poncho had been his idea.
Of course, maybe this time he’d finally return from the extraction point with some SEALs and FBI agents in tow, and she’d leave the “pants” behind for archeologists to puzzle over, five hundred years from now.
As Tasha threaded the needle with the next segment of thread—she was out of everything but red, orange, and pink—the lights abruptly went off, signaling that the door at the top of the stairs was being opened.
It was officially soon, and Thomas was back.
Heart in her throat, Tash sat very still as she waited the endlessly long five seconds before the lights came back on again. When they did, she moved deliberately carefully, securing the needle back in the plastic case—mostly because stepping on it with bare feet would suck, but also because a sewing needle was a limited resource, and each kit only contained one.
She stood up, moving toward the door, ready to open it at Thomas’s Lizzo-knock.
But the knock didn’t come.
And it didn’t come.
Do not open this door if it’s not our established knock.
Okay. She’d understood that very clearly. But the options were always Thomas doesn’t come back, or Thomas comes back, then knocks in their established pattern, or Thomas comes back, but knocks a non-Lizzo knock.
It hadn’t occurred to either of them to create a rule for Thomas comes back, but doesn’t knock.
And the big question that popped up was why? Why wasn’t he knocking? Or perhaps more accurately, why couldn’t he knock?
And a scenario—a catastrophic one—immediately popped into Tasha’s head. One in which Thomas had been badly injured and just managed to crawl back to the pod and through the bulkhead door, only to fall unconscious once inside.
She opened the door.
It was heavy, but she wrestled it ajar enough for her to peer out and up the stairs. The dim lights were still on but the landing was silent and empty. So she pulled the door even further open—enough for her to slip through.
But before she did that, she stopped again to listen for a moment, and again heard nothing. No labored breathing, no regular breathing.
God, did she even remember how to do CPR?
She shrugged off the blanket that she’d wrapped around her shoulders, and went out